What’s Love Got to Do with It?

In the years following the Kennedy assassination, when Jacquline Bouvier Kennedy eventually married Aristotle Onassis, I remember reading a piece in nothing so lofty as a serious ‘journal’ of the times, but rather Look magazine.

On the subject of that union the article began:

‘If they fight every day, they will still have the perfect marriage, because through his vast wealth, she got protection for her children, and he got the world’s ultimate bauble.’

Referring to Mrs. Kennedy as a ‘bauble’ stands matchless in the utterances echoing though the corridors of time.

I have no patience with grousing about the ‘sham marriage’ of Bill and Hillary Clinton. She didn’t bake cookies, and he was serially unfaithful, but the marriage took them where they aspired to be. That aspiration has now crashed, and as if I have the right, I genuinely ache for Hillary Rodham (Clinton).

The other wife? The worst thing I’ve read about Melania Trump is that “she’d still be turning tricks in Transylvania if she hadn’t married Donald.” I think this is uncalled-for, as I nod to the words of Saint Truman (Capote):

“A boy [girl] has to make his [her] way in the world.”

My skin crawls for the price the current Mrs. Trump pays. A similar revulsion is for me the very idea of this couple moving into Mrs. Kennedy’s and Mrs. Obama’s White House, prissy as that sounds.

The contribution to this tenancy, by those whose ‘lofty ideals’ compelled them to sit out this election? I’m searching for the word to describe my reaction to them.

As Mark Twain wrote, “The difference between the almost right word and the right word is … the difference between the lightning bug and the lightning.”

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Why am I telling you this?

I started blogging in 2009, but in October 2016, I ditched the previous posts in a fit of cyber housecleaning. Some of it was really nice writing, but alas, as my old friend Susan once said: ‘Compulsion is a cruel master’.